With the deadline for the 2012 Wellcome Trust Screenwriting Prize fast approaching, we’ve been discussing what the best science or medically-inspired films are. We asked Sir David Attenborough, Jo Brand, Alice Roberts and others.

Jo Brand, Comedian

“My favourite medically-inspired film is One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. This film is a triumph because of the combination of the brilliant story as told by Ken Kesey and the superb actors in it. I think it is easily Jack Nicholson’s best film as Mac Murphy the man with a personality disorder who foments revolution on a mental health unit. As an ex psychiatric nurse, it made me feel slightly ashamed because the nursing staff were so awful, either completely apathetic or sadistic. Of course, the name Nurse Ratched has become a byword for a particular type of nasty nurse. I’ve met a few!

Conversely, I despise any film with a multiple personality disorder in it. A disproportionate number of films with women with loads of personalities seem to have been made in the 50s and 60s and although it’s obviously a great dramatic hook to hang your film on, I have NEVER met anyone with a multiple personality disorder and these films just irritate me.”

Alice Roberts, Broadcaster, author, lecturer

“My favourite medically-inspired film is Julian Schnabel’s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, based on the book by Jean-Dominique Bauby, which is his personal account of locked-in syndrome. The film is as beautiful and moving as the book.

“My least favourite film that was apparently inspired by science is Planet of the Apes (either version). What annoys me most is the idea that other apes are on the way to becoming human, and will inevitably become more human-like and even evolve to speak like humans, given enough time. That’s such a misrepresentation of evolutionary theory. And the awful make-up!”

“My favourite would be Alien, which is odd for me because I‘m usually too chicken to watch horror movies. However, its central ideas of birth and the powerful role of the ‘feminine’ nature, along with portraying three distinct lifecycles for the ‘monster’ put this onto another plane. Less sure about the concentrated acid for blood and multiple sets of jaws, but it certainly made for a gripping watch.”

Daniel Glaser, Head of Special Projects, Wellcome Trust

“My favourites would be Memento for its fabulously accurate and engaging portrayal of the subjective experience of anterograde amnesia (the inability to form new memories) and the difference between procedural and declarative memory, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind for its rugged science fiction approach to field-use MRI and the ethics of memory deletion combined with haunting memory-loss imagery, and finally Evolution for its surprisingly detailed scientific content (non-DNA based lifeforms undergoing rapid mutation in a novel environment) combined with unremittingly trashy film values.”

Mark Henderson, Head of Communications, Wellcome Trust

“It always comes up in lists of top sci-fi movies, but it’s hard to ignore Gattaca. It’s a compelling story, beautifully shot and acted, and founded on a dystopian vision that actually takes science seriously and takes care not to go too far. I particularly appreciated the detail that genetic discrimination occurs through embryo selection – an existing technology – rather than genetic engineering. And the film’s narrative slays the pernicious myth that genetics is in the main a deterministic science, rather than a probabilistic one.

“Compare and contrast with another movie ostensibly about genetics. Splice, for example, is a procession of howlers and clichés about scientists ‘playing God’ and ‘going too far’. All fine as a horror romp, a modern retelling of Frankenstein, seasoned with a dash of the X-Men. But not but not if you purport, as its director Vincenzo Natali did, to be making a film with contemporary significance, a cautionary tale for our times.

“Sci-fi can bend science to breaking point in the name of entertainment – no-one complains much about bad science in Spider-Man. Or it can be true to plausibility, like Gattaca, and invite the audience to think. It can’t have it both ways.”

Craig Brierley, Media Relations Team Manager, Wellcome Trust

“If I were forced to choose my all-time favourite film, it would probably be the sci-fi noir Blade Runner. The first time I saw it, it didn’t make much of an impact. The second time I saw it, one scene in particular caught me unaware and the whole film just clicked into place. It’s an incredibly moving yet quietly unsettling scene. Rachel is in Deckard’s dimly lit apartment. She is arguing that she cannot be a replicant as she has clear memories of her childhood, but Deckard questions how she can be sure these memories are her own. The mood is languid and Vangelis’s haunting score serves to emphasise Rachel’s loneliness. Our memories and experiences are such an important part of who we are, and the suggestion that everything we remember may have been implanted is somehow quite terrifying.”

Sir David Attenborough, Broadcaster

“The sad truth is (and I feel a bit ashamed to admit it) that I hardly ever go to the cinema these days. As a consequence, the best film on a scientific subject that I can recall was The Story of Louis Pasteur starring Paul Muni. It really was riveting. But – alas – I saw it in 1937.”

Do you agree with our panel’s choices –­ and reasoning? What’s your favourite science or medically-inspired film? Let us know in the comments.

The Wellcome Trust Screenwriting Prizeencourages the creation of high-quality feature films inspired by biology or medicine. The 2012 competition is open for entries until 10 August 2012.

Interesting choice – particularly with criticisms about dodgy science levelled at it (we’ve another blog post about this coming up shortly). You weren’t put off by some of the less believable aspects of the plot?

Erk, not sure if this is serious, but Prometheus was dreadful. Especially in the representation of the “scientists”, the tools of science and yeah actually pretty much all of it (the plot, the dialogue, the acting and I could go on). Except the production design and cinematography, that was great.

But getting up and running after your abdominal muscles have been sliced open? The engineers being a “perfect DNA match”? The scientist who thinks that choosing to believe is more important than following the evidence? It was painfully bad.

Has to be Ken Brannagh’s ‘Frankenstein’ Great story by Mary Shelley, love the whole Victorian fascination with science/creating life – love this film as it is shot like a play. Who would have thought Robert De Niro could bring such sensitivity and pathos to the monster…….

Contact was an interesting mainstream film that took the ‘science v religion’ debate to the masses and particularly middle America. Not the best film ever made but was good to see this debate featured so heavily and made some interesting points. It was interesting how it documented the way that institutions whom originally deny your funding, often take the kudos for your work.

“Be afraid. Be very afraid.” The Fly. A stereotypical science-gone-mad film (s), but great suspense. There are so many films to choose from …. I vividly remember the Kafkaesque settings of Vincenzo Natali’s Cube, a surreal plot with no real answers.

I thought Sunshine was so terrible that I really don’t remember anything about it! I can think of far more sci-fi films that I loved and very few more than The Matrix. I just remember the jaw-dropping special effects coupled with a storyline that was as thought-provoking as any film I’ve ever seen. But my guilty pleasure is Ghostbusters.

I have always loved Children of Men. The film is set in a dystopian near future. With a single problem, global infertility. It plays on a lot of Western fears about decreasing birthrates and indulges in a mass interesting political and social commentary throughout the film.

It is also utterly gripping with the longest single-shot action sequence in film history. Science has a really strange place in the film, with a mysterious (possible mythical) group of researchers promising deliverance for the protagonists from the war-torn, violent streets of Britain. For me, it’s one of those films you can keep coming back to again and again.

I have a warm and fuzzy memory of Mask, Peter Bogdanovich’s film about Rocky Dennis, a young man with craniodiaphyseal dysplasia (a disfiguring enlargement of the bones in the head). It’s an intimate story of his turbulent relationship with his tough but helpless mother, a glimpse of first love and a war he’s fighting with his own body. Bogdanovich takes a true story about a boy with a rare disease and elevates it from ‘weepy of the week’ to something inspiring and courageous. Watch the 2004 DVD version to hear Bruce Springsteen splashed all over a remastered soundtrack.

Minority Report, because a lot of the technology that seemed amazing in 2002 is already here. Which must be the fastest transition from screen to hand ever.
Touch screen technology, dragging and dropping applications, iris recognition tools. Even tailored adverts to the individual – used in London recently by technology that could define the gender of a passer by and display appropriate material.
And then there’s pre-arresting of people who are going to commit murder which is scarily reminiscent of recent attempts to identify and categorize infants or even foetuses as future trouble makers with accompanying government intervention.

‘Shutter Island’ is the one of the many for me. The whole notion of treatments, the duplicity and untrustworthy notions of the mind and the darkness of that further reflected within the lighting and effects of the production – truly chilling. Contagion is also another film that made me think about transmission of disease and the reality of all the organisations that go into such a task – science in reality!

Got to be Jurassic Park, surely? Absolute classic and loads of totally *rock solid* science content. Apparently some Australian billionaire is going to try and create his own dinosaur using the Jurassic Park method http://mashable.com/2012/08/01/real-life-jurassic-park/. Can’t fail.

With needles and injections in mind there’s a two-way tie between Flash Gordon and The Tall Guy, with The Cannonball Run in third. Were I to momentarily lower my high-brow standards then The Cider House Rules evokes and provokes around the medicalisation of pregnancy and adoption.

George A. Romero’s original Dawn of the Dead – the desperate attempts of the remaining few to survive a global pandemic. More shots to the head than (vaccines) to the arm, but just about relevant enough for this and a big favourite of mine.

I’m a fan of Danny Boyle’s 2007 film Sunshine, about a fading sun that needs a re-boot. The spaceship they send up to try this has to consider all facets of the crew’s life and health; such as growing food, metal stability and lots of other fascinating things. Well worth it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunshine_(2007_film)

For me the best science inspired film has to be Danny Boyle’s sunshine. It should be terrible, it should be awful but it just isn’t. I love the loneliness and pschological issues of space travel that it deals with. Awesome.

For medical ethics the Constant Gardner is pretty gripping, for science ethics featuring alien prawns District 9 is a winner, but for my favourite movie with a medical slant I have to join Sir Attenborough and go old school.

‘Harvey’ is a 1950s film that explores the nature of reality and our desire to “cure” people who behave in a socially inappropriate way. It features a 6ft 3.5inch rabbit that can stop time and James Stewart. Win. Favourite quote: “In this world, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant. Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant.”

As for the worst science film, it has to be 2012 for the line “The neutrinos have mutated”. In the words of Dara O’Briain: “these are fundamental particles. It’s like going, “The electrons are angry”. EPIC science fail.

Organ transplantation has been an incredible advance in medicine, and has inspired a number of great films. I enjoyed Coma (1978), The Island (2005), which whilst much-ridiculed has a great story at it’s heart, and Never Let Me Go (2010), which to me is the most sinister. This is organ donation to the point of death where the willing donors have been mentally reduced to livestock…

I have lots of favourite sci-fi, medical type films, some already mentioned above, but I find films about disease, virus and contagion interesting to watch. I’m sorry but I have to mention ‘I am legend’ (2007) – it’s NOT one of my favourite films, ok? You have all the unavoidable cliches (last man standing, only one who can save mankind, zombie chases but hero escapes and gets home just in time to watch Shrek etc.). But it has some interesting elements, like the dialogue at the beginning of the film, in the TV show, with Emma Thompson’s character saying:

‘Well, the premise is quite simple – um, take something designed by nature and reprogram it to make it work for the body rather than against it.’… What to think? Scary, I think…

Also, 28 Days Later (2002)- very gross in places, but also portraying science intervention with negative results and tragic consequences. Fiction, of course, but could there be a glimpse of reality? Contagion (2011) already mentioned, was interesting in terms of picturing what the CDC’s procedures are when a suspected contagion is on the rampage.

Taking a far longer time perspective than other correspondents, Korda’s 1936 Things to Come, based on H G Wells’ novel, has to be the best sci-fi film of all time (with the added attracation of not being American).

Actually, I would say that it is in many ways not really ‘sci fi’ at all but based on what at the time was a thoroughly plausible scenario of the future.

Nowadays people sometimes denigrate it because the special effects (and to some extent the acting) are ‘clunky’ – but they do so with the dubious privilege of hindsight.

There are some wonderful vignettes, such as Ralph Richardson as the ‘Boss’ in a world after the ravages of war and disease – in an economy totally devoid of petrol – but still riding in a Rolls-Royce – pulled by a horse!

More recently, Deep Impact (1998) had a very good exploration of the dilemmas faced by those who are aware of an impending (in this case, cosmic) disaster about whether or when to reveal this to the media and therefore the general public.

Overall, I would say Blade Runner for its cinematography, score and dystopian vision of the future. However, I saw Never Let Me Go in the last week, where the science is a subtle linchpin for a human drama. I had a lump in my throat by the closing monologue and it’s been a while since any film did that to me.

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